Recently i went through the month 3 course of ICS: lead in development.Liked it, especially the illustrative games they have given with annotations and comments is nice.

BUT why in PDFs? Won't it be better if they could give everything browser based? It's similar to reading a book I had to re-do everything in PGN, and then study it. One PDF with 5 games took me some 5 hours (approx)

Can't we make a request so that they can upgrade everything to browser based? Reading from PDF is time taking and as good as reading a book, then what's the advantage of online courses? I would better have purchased a book, right??

@PawnCustodian: No, they are providing chessbase files, only for the games. Check month3 - the theory portion. After the initial explanation in that pdf they have provided 5 games, in same pdf as the theory.

I just play the games through on a real board. This is one of the high recommendations of ICS -- do it on a real board!

With that in mind, I prefer PDFs simply because they are formatted perfectly for printing/reading.

I also try to visualise the moves first, trying to reinforce my visualisation training.

I can understand your point though... the ICS course is quite offline focussed and it would be great to see a fully interactive site that could lead you through the course material.

__________________________________________Content will be assimilated.Resistance is futile.----

Blue Devil Knight wrote:The danger of studying positional chess at the expense of tactics is that you will spend a half hour thinking about where a Knight belongs, and then proceed to put it on a beautiful square where it is en prise.

Well I did it and I think it's wise to do it. The real board thing makes otb play easier imo.

Made for a good study if you ask me.

__________________________________________Content will be assimilated.Resistance is futile.----

Blue Devil Knight wrote:The danger of studying positional chess at the expense of tactics is that you will spend a half hour thinking about where a Knight belongs, and then proceed to put it on a beautiful square where it is en prise.

I didn't find the time issue to be that signficant -- it doesn't take that long to setup a chessboard position... and I didn't print anything, I have a laptop next to my set ;-)

__________________________________________Content will be assimilated.Resistance is futile.----

Blue Devil Knight wrote:The danger of studying positional chess at the expense of tactics is that you will spend a half hour thinking about where a Knight belongs, and then proceed to put it on a beautiful square where it is en prise.

One of the main reasons I prefer Chessbase over PDFs is I frequently find that I have messed up the game position as I play over the games on the board.

With a laptop next to the board I am able to stay in sync or quickly get back to the game position after exploring variations. The alternative it to play over games with two boards as some people do...

__________________________________________Content will be assimilated.Resistance is futile.----

Blue Devil Knight wrote:The danger of studying positional chess at the expense of tactics is that you will spend a half hour thinking about where a Knight belongs, and then proceed to put it on a beautiful square where it is en prise.